Poll: Democrats underperforming with black voters
February 24, 2020
A new survey of registered African-American voters found that a significant number are growing disillusioned with the Democratic Party.
The survey, conducted by the political action committee BlackPAC, found that while black voters are largely supportive of the Democratic Party and align most with its values, more than half feel that the party is not paying close enough attention to the black community. Democrats, they argue, grew too distracted by impeachment to focus on the issues that matter to black voters, putting them out of touch with the key bloc whose support they’ve relied on for decades.
The Democratic Party maintains an overwhelming share of black support, with 70% saying that they will vote for the party’s presidential nominee in November. Yet more than one-third of all black voters surveyed expressed desire for “someone else” to run. Given the option to vote for the Democratic nominee, Trump or a third party candidate, Trump and the third-party candidate each received 12% of support.
“Black voters are extremely anxious right now about what’s happening in the country,” said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, citing the large percentages of survey participants who also expressed dissatisfaction with the economy and direction of the country. “It matters not the age category or people that live in rural or suburban communities. People are paying attention at a really high rate.”
The results of the survey come as Donald Trump’s reelection campaign ramps up its efforts to garner black support. The president’s team has employed a number of efforts to build support in black communities — including cash giveaways to black supporters. In 2016, Trump received 8% of the black vote, according to exit polls. BlackPAC found that 28% of the black voters in its survey reported either seeing Trump’s campaign ads, receiving mail paraphernalia or being directly contacted by the Trump campaign.
Still, the president and Republican Party as a whole remain very unpopular with black voters, as 76% of them disapprove of the president‘s performance and nearly 80% support his removal from office. Of the black voters who reported contact with the Trump campaign, 57% said it negatively influenced their willingness to vote for the president. Nearly a quarter of voters said defeating Donald Trump was most important to them in November.
Black voters have long been considered the backbone of the Democratic Party due to the high volume and consistency with which they have turned out to vote for the party’s nominees. In 2016, exit polls revealed that 88% of black voters supported Hillary Clinton. In 2012, Barack Obama got 93% of the black vote. Voters hold a 62% approval rating for Democrats in Congress, nearly 30 points above the RealClearPolitics national average.
Yet, the poll results reveal that black Democratic support may be softening ahead of November, as black voters grow more anxious about the country’s direction and the sentiment continues to grow that the party — and its leadership — have not prioritized black voters' issues.
“This happens every election cycle. We hear from black voters a concern about whether Democrats are taking their votes for granted,” Shropshire explained. “And we also know that the vast majority of African-Americans will vote Democrat. And it’s because people are making a political calculation about what’s in the best interest of the community and what’s in the best interest of the country.”
The polling firm brilliant corners Research & Strategy conducted the survey on behalf of BlackPAC. It polled 804 black registered voters with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Source: https://www.politico.com/
